By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Export-Import Bank, NEXIM, Abba Bello, yesterday, disclosed that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, will soon off-take Nigeria gold at the international price.

Bello made this known at the Nigeria-Canada Investment Summit 2019, held in Abuja while speaking on what NEXIM is doing in the area of mining during a Mining Master Class of the Summit.

According to Bello a lot of things the bank is doing in order to place the country’s gold on the global gold community and will ensure investors in gold get value for their money.

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He said: “Now off-take becomes very important. Nigerian gold as of today has no destination that we know of. It gets there to the international market somehow, but we don’t know where it goes to. It is in Dubai, India and everywhere around the world, but nobody has a record of it.

“In order to encourage formal trade of gold the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has committed that part of reserve management will be in Nigerian Gold, and how would it work? If Dukia Gold gets off the ground whatever they produce the CBN will up-take.

“Whatever any exploration or processor of gold in Nigeria the CBN will up-take it at international prices and it forms part of Nigeria’s export of solid minerals, and all it may take for the processing and trade of gold in Nigeria.”

He also revealed that the bank had gone into high-level discussions with heavy equipment manufacturers and suppliers that would lease them to miners for exploration and processing that would be accessible and affordable.

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“For equipment supplier or outright purchase of equipment, we have gone into discussions with Blue care and now Mantra for the supply of heavy equipment for gold processing or exploration on lease basis and it is something that does not exist currently within the industry.

“Barrick Gold and Bullion Mart they know is something that happens in the mining world. You don’t have to own the equipment but there are vendors who supply the equipment for explorers to hire.

“Discussions have gone very far with the equipment suppliers and very soon we will announce the programme.”

He also said the bank would encourage the beneficiation of gold for value addition and more profit.

“We want to also encourage beneficiation right from the SME level. We have also in another programme that is related to Dukia Gold we are also trying to put processing centres at least for the first level of processing before it gets to refining in clusters.

“So when you explore gold we will put some processing equipment in those clusters where you can go and process it. Gold comes in large tonnages of rock. We want to make it easier for you by pre-processing it before the supply of the raw Gold for further processing”, he said.

He also stressed the need for access to finance as he acknowledged the enormity of financial resources to operate in the mining sector.

However, he stressed that operators should not just be concerned with only accessing finance but what asset it would add to their business including technology being the major driving force for sustainability and profitability.

“You know in mining the amount of capital that is needed is enormous. Technology is key because you won’t be able to achieve 99.99 per cent purity from where we are today. So we need technical support.

“So financing is basic for us. You can come will give you finance, but we want that finance top produces adequate returns for you from the artisanal level. We want all the benefits on what you are doing to get to you and we can do it through the value system”, he added.

Meanwhile, he urged women to take full advantage of the gold industry in terms of exploration and processing, which the bank will provide support for them to excel.

“I want to encourage women that you should be part of the exploration of gold or the processing of gold, and we are there to support you”, he assured.

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